This invention relates generally to the field of dispensing systems and more particularly, to an improved item dispensing system.
State sponsored lotteries are a popular and accepted method of generating revenue in place of, or in addition to, taxes. One form of lottery uses instant lottery tickets on which number combinations are preprinted before distribution, thereby permitting the player to immediately view the ticket and know whether he/she is a winner. One system of distributing instant lottery tickets is entirely clerical with the tickets being stored in a drawer and counted out by hand. The clerk typically is responsible for keeping track of the number of tickets sold, making redemption payments and providing such sales and payout information to the state. The state then pays the store owner a commission or other monies due. Such a system has the disadvantages of being completely manual and requiring clerical assistance for the entire transaction. Further, the system has no significant security and is susceptible to shrinkage, that is, theft and accounting errors that result in lost revenue and tickets.
Another system for distributing instant lottery tickets is the individual ticket vending machine, which is a stand-alone, unattended automated ticket dispenser. The vending machine accepts the customer""s cash or credit card payment and provides a selection of lottery tickets corresponding to the payment. The customer then makes various ticket selections having a value equaling the payment. The vending machine monitors the ticket selections and dispenses the lottery tickets selected by the customer. Such a vending machine has the advantages of not requiring the attention of a clerk, being very secure, and providing a high level of reporting by keeping track of how often the machine is accessed to be loaded and serviced, when and how much money is collected, when and which tickets have been selected, etc. The vending machine may also include a printer for printing reports of machine activity.
While the above vending machine has many advantages over the clerical method of distributing instant lottery tickets, it also has several shortcomings. For example, there are several error conditions which may arise in the normal course of machine operation that should be addressed in a timely manner. For example, the device collecting and counting cash received by the machine may become jammed or otherwise inoperable. The machine may collect and store an amount of cash that is in excess of a desired amount. While such machines have the capability of keeping track of the inventory of lottery tickets, each packet of lottery tickets has a unique identifying indicia, but there is no way of automatically tracking that indicia and hence, those specific tickets, in the automated ticket dispensing process. Further, the programmed control of the ticket dispensing system is constantly being improved; and in any ticket distribution system, there may be thousands of ticket dispensers. Thus, the process of manually providing updated software to each of the ticket dispensers is cumbersome, requires a significant maintenance labor force and relies on personnel who often have limited or no computer experience to properly install and test revisions to the operating software within the ticket dispenser.
Therefore, there is a need to provide a dispensing system that is easier to maintain and provides more information to a central control, so that a more reliable ticket dispensing operation is maintained.
The present invention provides an item dispensing system that automatically monitors and detects any desired operating conditions. The automation of such item dispensing system diagnosis provides a vastly improved service capability. The item dispensing system network of the present invention provides a distributed system that facilitates the processing, transmission and reporting of diagnostic information relating to the operation of all of the item dispensing systems in the network. The present invention is especially suitable for those installations in which an entity has an obligation of servicing the item dispensing systems.
Within the item dispensing system network of the present invention, each of the item dispensing systems automatically provides a servicing agent with alarms indicating that an item dispensing system has, or will shortly, go out of service. However, each of the item dispensing systems does not automatically provide the servicing agent with alarms if a respective item dispensing system detects a fault that will not lead to an imminent out of service condition. Thus, the item dispensing network of the present invention has the advantage of providing the entity responsible for service only the most important operational states, that is, an existing or imminent out of service condition, so that such entity can most efficiently deploy its service assets.
According to the principles of the present invention in accordance with one described embodiment, an item dispensing system has an item dispenser, a controller in electrical communications with the item dispenser and a fault store for storing fault thresholds and faults. In one aspect of that invention, the fault thresholds represent operating states of the item dispenser, and a true state of a fault is registered in the fault store in response to the operating conditions of the item dispensing system being equal one of the fault thresholds. A alarm is generated by the controller in response to the fault being registered.
In another embodiment, the invention provides an item dispensing system network having a communications link connected between a computer and the item dispensing system, whereby the alarm is transmitted to the item dispensing system.
In another embodiment of the invention, a method of dispensing items first provides an item dispensing system. A fault threshold is stored, and a fault is registered in response to an operating state of the item dispensing system being equal to the fault threshold. An alarm is generated in response to the fault. In an aspect of this embodiment of the invention, a current state of the fault is compared to a prior state of the fault, and a deterioration of the state of the state of the fault is detected. The alarm is then generated only in response to determining the deterioration of the state of the state of the fault.
The item dispensing system network of the present invention has great flexibility in monitoring the operating states of individual devices within each of the item dispensing systems in the network. First, the present invention has the ability to immediately transfer an alarm to the computer upon the occurrence of a fatal fault, that is, a fault indicating the item dispensing system is out of service. However alarms based on nonfatal faults is avoided, thereby minimizing the occurrence of nuisance alarms and the dispatching of service agents to item dispensing systems that are not out of service. Second, the item dispensing system network of the present invention has the capability of being able to independently tune the creation of faults and alarms for each of the devices within each of the item dispensing systems. Therefore, fault and alarm sensitivity can be adjusted to meet the unique requirements of each item dispensing system.
This capability allows nonfatal faults and alarms to be tuned so that operating states of devices within each item dispensing system which would normally lead to an out of service condition can be tracked. Thus, a potential out of service condition can be anticipated, and the item dispensing system can be serviced before its occurrence. This operation limits the number of alarms presented to the computer and substantially reduces the load of the computer when it is connected to a large number of item dispensing systems. By performing that function automatically, the user of the computer, who is often responsible for the maintenance of a large number of item dispensing systems, has a significantly less burden. With the above capability, the allocation of service agent assets can be accomplished more rationally, efficiently and cost effectively to the benefit of everyone.
These and other objects and advantages of the present invention will become more readily apparent during the following detailed description taken in conjunction with the drawings herein.